


Locked Out, Baking Day, MooMaw's POV

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Series: Locked Out [6]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, discussion of coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 06:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17218955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: MooMaw knows more than she lets on





	Locked Out, Baking Day, MooMaw's POV

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the baking day in [Chapter 6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807630/chapters/38316986).

MooMaw glanced around her kitchen when Dicky called and said he was on his way over.

She’d already washed the breakfast dishes, and made sure the table and counters were spick and span. 

She’d asked Dicky if there was anything she should prepare ahead of time, like they did on those fancy cooking shows on the television, but Dicky said no. They would do everything from start to finish, and then he would edit the video he recorded.

“I really just want to cook with you, like we used to,” Dicky said.

That sounded fine to MooMaw. Funny old name, MooMaw. But since her grandchildren were born, it seemed like hardly anyone called her anything else.

She went to the powder room to look in the glass. Her hair was -- well, it was old-lady hair, a puff of white surrounding her head. But it was clean and neat. She applied more lipstick and a touch of mascara, and straightened the collar of her shirt.

What would she look like in Dicky’s video? She hoped the camera didn’t really add ten pounds. She’d never seen one of Dicky’s videos before. The whole family knew he made them, but he never told where to find one. This one, he said, he would give her.

“I could make a DVD for you if you want,” he’d told her. “I don’t suppose you’d want a link.”

She wasn’t sure if he thought she wouldn’t know how to use the link -- which was silly; clicking a link was just as easy as using a DVD, easier even -- or if he realized that she might be able to use it find his other videos. Unless he set up a private channel just for this one, just to send a link to her. 

It was actually because of Dicky that MooMaw got comfortable with the Internet. First, when he decided to go to school a thousand miles away, and she realized she was going to have to embrace email. Then she got Suzanne to show her how to do the calls with the video. It was good to see Dicky’s face.

It came in handy when she started getting serious about what to do if (when?) Dickey came out to her.

Maybe it would be today. Maybe that was why he set up this whole afternoon. Maybe that was why he hadn’t simply invited her to bake with him in Suzanne’s kitchen.

**********************************

It wasn’t today.

MooMaw surveyed her kitchen once again, this time with dishes containing the portions of the pie and cobbler and shortcake on the counter. She was inordinately proud that the rest of the kitchen had been set to rights before Dicky went home; he knew that cleaning up was as much a part of cooking as eating the food.

There had been a moment or two when she thought Dicky was about to open up, to tell her that he liked boys. There was the moment she asked whether he baked with anyone. He talked about a teammate who started out suspicious of a hockey player who baked, then came around. Maybe he and Dickey --? No. She saw Dicky hesitate before he answered. He was thinking of someone else, and she would bet her own grandmother’s pie plate that it was a boy.

He didn’t say that, of course. He was still bright and sunny, but he was much better at holding his cards close to his vest that when he was five. She missed that little boy who would tell her anything.

She tried to give him the message that it was okay, that it was fine, it was all fine, that she was proud of him.

The thought must have been burrowing its way in, because later Dicky asked what she meant when she said there wasn’t a thing wrong with him.

“You’re a fine young man, and I’m very proud of you,” she told him. “I know you know some people think baking is a feminine pursuit “Some people think that would mean that maybe you weren’t as masculine as you should be. Which is hogwash, of course. You’re just as you should be.”

He followed that up not by telling her that he was gay, but by demonstrating the best way to skin peaches for the camera.

So she kept her mouth shut. Everything she read told her to let him decide when -- and if -- to come out, and the poor boy had been pushed around and bullied enough in middle school to last him a lifetime.

It was around then that she began to think he might need her in his corner even more than his cousins, and started gathering information, driving into Atlanta at first to use a library where no one knew her.

Getting more internet savvy had certainly helped, although she had seen things she maybe wished she hadn’t. She was prepared to support Dicky as strongly as possible, but that didn’t mean she wanted to look at other people having sex.

Maybe if Suzanne could find a way to talk to the child?

But Suzanne was part of the problem. Not that she was hateful. Just … traditional. How had she raised a daughter who was so devoted to her family, but couldn’t see her boy was hurting?

That wasn’t fair. When Suzanne and Richard found out about the utility closet, they’d pulled up stakes and moved: a new job for Richard and a new school for Dicky. But they never seemed to realize that a sensitive young person like Dicky might feel that it was his fault.

There had been another moment, near the end of the afternoon, when Dicky started talking about his friend Jack. The way his eyes lit up … MooMaw didn’t know whether there was anything more than a friendship there, but she was sure Dicky wanted there to be.

Well. She would find out when Dicky wanted her to find out. In the meantime, she had the satisfaction of knowing that her 21-year-old grandson chose to spend a whole afternoon with her.

She would make sure to say some extra prayers for him tonight.


End file.
